*Reading in the Dark

bc reading in the dark
You know from the first two pages that the characters in the novel are haunted. The protagonist is an unnamed child who is told, “Don’t move,” by his mother when he is running up the stairs.  His mother is only an arm’s length away, but she was convinced there was something between them.  He thought their house was haunted, and it excited him.  That haunting was the thing that no one talked about.  This family didn’t sit around and pass down stories of their ancestors, a honed Irish tradition.  There’s something missing here, and we go on a journey with the protagonist of the story as he pieces together tidbits during his childhood until he patiently puts it all together.

The backdrop of Seamus Deane’s novel is the scary world of Northern Ireland in the 1940’s and 1950’s. We follow this unnamed boy as he grows into a young man and watch him wade through some grim and bleak times. As he gathers his tidbits of information from various relatives, neighbors, friends, police officers, he becomes even more fixated on finding the truth to some unknown tragedy that is haunting his mother.  But who does he trust? His friends? The priests? The police? His grandfather?  His family?

Some of the things the young boy endures at the hands of police and the priests are reminiscent of “Angela’s Ashes.”  Never would our current society stand for the abuse leveled on that young boy at the police station.  I can’t imagine how his father must have felt that night.

One of my favorite chapters is entitled “Grandfather – December 1948.”  Brother Reagan tells the young boy’s class the story of a man arrested for the murder of a policeman.  It is the unnamed boy’s grandfather’s story.  At the end of the story Brother Reagan wants the boys to understand that they have to understand the “difference between a wrong done to us and equal wrong done by us.”  He told the boys that “they will be entering a world of wrong, insult, injury, unemployment, a world where the unjust hold power and the ignorant rule.  But there is an inner peace nothing can reach; no insult can violate, no corruption can deprave.  Hold on to that; it is what your childish innocence once was and what your adult maturity must become.  Hold to that…”  Beautiful chapter, beautiful wisdom, beautiful words – amazing!!!

This is a perfect book for book clubs.  It has so many things to discuss from the troubles in Northern Ireland, to the power of the police and church, to family secrets.  There’s an initial subtlety to the words as you read, but what a wallop those words carry.

A must read!

Rating: 9

Leave a Reply